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T R oday I caught the biggest 11-inch trout of my life. He came from deep beneath a side-slipping redrock ledge, a stunning little brook trout that I hooked with a 1-weight Sage TXL-F fly rod that I'd had for less than a month. Fishing with such a light and exquisitely crafted instrument brings an entirely new dimension to the art of fly fishing. It requires an altered state of comprehension and elevated awareness, and any fish you engage with it seems to be exponentially larger and stronger. But it also adds a heightened level of responsibility for the angler, who must play each fish with great care to assure its survival. I was fishing Poso Creek, a little stream high in the San Juan mountains that I have known and loved for years. My normal rods for such holy places have always been 3- and 4-weights. But now I was here with this little wisp of a 1-weight, which requires that you tailor its use to the fish and the environs for which it was originally conceived and designed. With such a rod, you must adjust both your casts and your thinking, making certain that each trout you encounter is properly perceived and properly played, then properly released and fully capable of surviving to live a long and vigorous life. There are those crucial few seconds when you first hook a trout in which he doesn't understand what is happening. He has most likely never experienced such a thing, and for a moment he is frightened, amblings By Michael Altizer disoriented and confused. This is the critical time when you might be able to gain line on him before he gathers his forces in earnest and goes into full fighting mode. If you can manage to get below him, so much the Fishing with exceptionally light fly rods demands that you adjust both your casts and your thinking. SPOR TIN G CL ASSICS 87